Osprey Hikelite 18 DAY PACK Review

Hey guys, Chris here. Today I have the Osprey Hikelite 18 lightweight day pack. It's got a lot of great features on it. We're going to take a look at that next. Hey guys, good to see you again. I got a nice little day pack that I picked up. I thought you guys would be interested. It's very lightweight, a lot of good features on it. It's a spring day and I thought this would be a good day to test it out and see what we really got here. The Hikelite 18, that is a really, like the name says, Hikelite. It is 1.49 pounds, comes in at 1,998 cubic inches, which is 18 liters, and this is one size. It actually even has a tag on it that says OS right there, and OS means one size. I wasn't sure if it meant overly sized or something. I had no idea, but anyways, figured that one out. This comes in at $85. Look at that, 1.49 pounds. $85, pretty much their suggested retail all over the internet, but I did see it on the Osprey website, $59.50 just today, and that could change, but what that means is that certain times of the year they run specials on these things and you can save some money on it, so that's pretty cool. Kind of shop around and see what you can find. This pack is really good for day hiking, obviously, but this is really good for skiers, mountain bikers, day hikers, everyday use, just taking to work and stuff. People actually use it for that kind of thing, so that's kind of cool. Good thing to know, really. Let's just take it right from the top here. So it's got the outside handle here. This works really great. I hang these in my garage, so I always appreciate that with the Osprey backpacks. It does have, at the very top here, the outside zippered compartment. This is really good for putting your cell phone. I got an iPhone X, but that works. Plenty of room for that. Eyeglasses, obviously, can go in there, and it's got this heat embossed material that helps scratch resistant for things like cell phones and sunglasses, so that works really good. There is no external outside front cargo pocket. I always like having something like that, even if it's just a little mesh right here. There's nothing there. That's okay. It's a small backpack, but your main compartments are this one and then the main compartment, which is right here, doubled looped zippers at the top here, and that comes down really all the way down to the top of the water bottle pockets, and that opens up nicely there. Got a jacket in there. This is your hydration sleeve reservoir pouch, I guess, and it does have a clip here to hang it from so it doesn't sink to the bottom, and then you can put the hose right out. Where do we put the hose? Let's see. There it is right at the top here. Oh, wait. There it is right there. I couldn't find it. There. I always got to stick my finger in there, but right at the top, you can put your hose on, but that's a two to three liter water. Water reservoirs will work great inside that. Zip that up. On the sides here, we do have some side compression straps on each side, and those work good just to cinch your load down. Once you get a bunch of clothes in here, a bunch of things in there, you can cinch that down, but you can also, because of the size of the water bottle pocket, you can take something like trekking poles and put those inside there. Put it right in the water bottle pocket. There we go, and snap that shut like that. There you go, because you can do that with your trekking poles if you want, or if you have like a canister for your fly rod or fishing rod, you can put that in there. The pockets on the sides are really, they're meant for the 32-ounce water bottle. Today, I just have a little 12-ounce water bottle, but they're really generous pockets. They'll work really great. For a smaller water bottle, it is loose, so you don't want to be bending over and having it fall over, but the 32 will snugly fit inside there. Good thing to know. A couple of gear loops on the back. This is a really good feature. On the back here, we have a rain cover right there. That's the little logo for it, and that's just permanently in the bottom here, and it does have a toggle strap to keep it intact here, and you can pull that bugger out when it's raining. The official Osprey green there for that. I guess that's kind of like for emergencies or something, but it's a good thing to have, though. It's a good feature on a small pack, and it's really unintrusive because it's snugly fit at the bottom here. Is that a technical term? Snugly? Not really. Don't use that word. Stick that back in here, and there we go. You almost don't notice it down here because it's got this seam over it with the zipper off to the side here, so it's kind of cool. On the back here, actually the front, is the airspeed back panel. That is a really number one feature I like about this, the Hi-Glide 18, is that it's got the trampoline style airspeed back panel, which is similar to the Atmos and the Manta 24 and the other sizes on those, but it really gives you that ventilation, and then there's the wire framing. I don't know if you can see it, but there's a wire framing right there, and it makes it very sturdy like that, so it's got the features of a big backpack, a larger backpack, but it's a small daypack, 18 liters, and that's a good thing to have. It does have a removable waist strap on it. It's not a belt. It's really a strap, but you could remove it right here if you wanted to. Some people like to just take it off and kind of cleans it up. You don't have these straps hanging on it. This belt is really meant to not take the load off your shoulders and your back, but to just secure it to your body so it's not moving around on you. I like that. I kind of would like to see maybe a little bit more substantial material coming out here to make that belt a little more substantial, but you're going to get more weight on it, and people that are using it for everyday use, they don't really need a big heavy belt. I'm used to more heavier duty hiking, and you definitely want a belt for longer hikes and things. On the shoulder straps, we have lift loaders at the top. A couple extra straps here to hang things from right there. It's padded. It's very lightly padded. It's not a real heavy padding on that. That's okay. It's an 18 liter pack. I wouldn't mind seeing that just a little thicker, but I guess they're really fighting, wrestling with the weight to keep it down, so that's probably where they would save some room there. We got a sternum strap right here. Really good thing to have. There's also a whistle on the sternum strap here. Surprisingly loud for how small it is, and that will adjust up and down. Somewhat limited. It's actually limited to this space here, which is fine. You really want to keep it literally across your sternum, and that's why it's called a sternum strap. Then the main adjustment right there, and it really cinches up nicely for a small pack. There's just enough adjustments on it to really keep it on your body. All right, you guys, so there it is, the HikeLite 18. That is a really good feel to this pack. It's really well built. It does have the Osprey guarantee, which is a lifetime guarantee. Any product, for any reason, from any error, they'll return it, replace it, and fix it, and make sure you're happy if anything goes awry with it, but I've never had any problems. I beat my Atmos 65 up pretty good, and those zippers still work, and it hasn't worn out. I'm always kind of amazed by that, but HikeLite 18. All right, thank you guys for watching. We'll see you next time. As always, keep hiking.